Auld Lang Syne
by Rose DiVerona
Summary: One-shot. "What bothered him the most was how little it bothered him." Tony reflects on a holiday in his past that didn't change anything. Even though it should have.


A/N: This is a one-shot about a particular holiday in Tony's memory. One that _didn't _change his life forever--but should have.

*I wrote this recently and meant to submit it before "Flesh and Blood" premiered. That didn't happen. So some details are inconsistent with what we now know of Tony's childhood. Just FYI.*

Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS.

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**Auld Lang Syne**

What bothered him the most was how _little _it bothered him.

Anthony DiNozzo wasn't a family person. He had been born to parents who didn't want him; to a father who ignored him and a mother who simply didn't care. He had no siblings and never grew close to any extended relatives. He was afraid of commitment--even afraid, sometimes, of the close connection he felt with his coworkers. In short, _family _was possibly his least favorite word.

He had not really loved her.

But...she had been his _mother._

He remembered her only vaguely; his formative youth had been spent distancing himself from the people he'd learned would never love him, and after she died he spent every minute convincing himself he was stronger than her--that he would survive.

She was beautiful, that much he could remember. Tall, pale, and slender. Her hair was long and strawberry-colored, and it smelled the same. She had given her eyes to her only son; piercing hazel, but always filled with a curious sadness.

Angela DiNozzo was never happy. She moved listlessly through her life much the same way she constantly drifted through the rooms of the family's Long Island manor. It was known by all who worked for Anthony DiNozzo, Sr. that her marriage had been for the money--that she did not love her husband. Angela had wanted to be a flight attendant, but her parents forbade her from that profession and practically arranged her marriage into the DiNozzo family.

Their were rumors of abuse, but those better-informed knew them to be false. When home, Anthony, Sr. was too drunk to be violent. He was also too preoccupied to care what his wife wanted or did; she was only important when she played the part of his escort at public events. When he truly wanted to be with a woman, he had any number of mistresses at his beck and call. Everyone knew this.

When Tony had been younger, there had been moments...brief, but there...when Angela had seemed to love her only son. But Tony soon grew to learn she thought of him as her little doll. He resented this; he was not a toy. He hated the chronic sailor suits and was frightened to death by his mother's brief obsession with Louis XV. He welcomed it when she eventually grew bored and began to leave him alone.

As he grew older, Tony watched the doctors come and go from the manor, as they did more and more often. Angela was fading away, and while his father told the public she was very ill, Tony knew it was simply that nothing made her happy. She had no will to live.

Angela had never been a schemer...but when she finally went out, she made sure it was an event to be remembered.

_It was New Year's Eve. 1982 was about to turn into 1983, and Tony was eleven years old. His parents were to be attending a dinner held at the elder Anthony's corporate building. Tony, of course, was not invited._

_He had noticed his mother's curiously inspired movements that evening. She was stunning as usual, but the fire in her eyes added a new level to her beauty, and Tony was very nearly in awe. He had never seen the woman like this, and almost fell over when she approached him directly, smiling._

_"Have a nice time with Linda tonight, dear," she cooed. Linda was the grandmotherly maid assigned to take care of the DiNozzo heir when his parents were out. Tony adored her._

_"Thank you, Mother," he said stiffly, with respect, as he'd been taught. Angela's perfume smelled wonderful, and for a moment the insane urge to hug her, to finger her silk dress and kiss her powdered cheek, came over him. _

_"I left you a little present in the wine rack. Linda will fetch it when the time comes," she told him._

_Tony could barely breathe. A present? His mother never gave him gifts--well, the tagged Christmas presents didn't count, because the servants picked them out._

_"Thank you," he said finally, but his father just then stepped into the room and Angela had already moved away. Something cold stole over the room._

_Anthony, Sr. didn't spare his son even a glance as he straightened his bowtie, squinting at his wife._

_"Ready, darling?" he said without any hint of fondness._

_Angela smiled and offered her husband her hand._

_"Of course."_

_Tony watched them leave. He felt a hand on his shoulder and glanced up at Linda. A look passed between the two of them, and Tony shivered. He couldn't shake the memory of his mother's smile--something was wrong. But his thoughts were distracted when his pseudo-nanny pulled out a bottle of sparkling grape juice and winked conspiratorially._

_He had no way of knowing he'd seen his mother for the last time._

_--_

_The remainder of the evening was enjoyable and quickly made Tony forget all about his parents. The cook had made Tony's favorite food, as he did every New Year's Eve--pizza with extra cheese, topped with generous portions of sausage and pepperoni. Linda let him use a real champagne glass for the sparkling beverage, and he ate in the kitchen instead of the formal dining room._

_After dinner, Tony challenged several members of the house staff to a board game tournament. As the hours passed, one by one they drifted away, those who did not live at the manor heading home, the others engaging in their own celebration on the third floor quarters. Eventually, Tony sent Linda away to join the latter group, settling himself in front of the television with his mother's gift (an elaborate cracker) clenched in his fist._

_It was a comfortable routine, and as the minutes ticked down to midnight, Tony settled into the couch and watched the festivities in Times Square play out onscreen. Despite having lived in Long Island his whole life, he had never been to see the ball drop in person. His ventures into the city-central had been few and far between, and always heavily chaperoned, with no exciting side-stops._

_He positioned his fingers to pull the cracker as the thirty-second mark came. His lips mouthed along with the throng as the countdown began, and he eagerly tugged as the new year officially began, bouncing backward instinctively at the bang._

_Before too long, he felt his eyelids grow heavy and leaned back into the cushions, allowing himself to doze. It wasn't until the sounds of overhead celebrating cut off abruptly, and he heard the words "DiNozzo Enterprises" from the T.V., that his consciousness came back to him and his eyes popped open._

_The announcer was grim, apologizing for interrupting the New Year Year's Rockin' Eve celebrations but saying that breaking news had come up at the DiNozzo Enterprises building in the city. The camera switched to Tony's father's building. There were firetrucks and police cars and a crowd of people surrounding the base of the structure._

_With a horrible kind of fascination, Tony watched as the view panned upward to focus on a figure standing on the precipice of the roof._

_Angela DiNozzo was easily recognizable. Her face was set and her arms held out straight at her sides._

_'She's going to jump,' Tony realized with a sudden thrill of horror, and so she did. The screams and sirens faded away to be replaced by a dull roar in Tony's ears as his mother sailed downward._

_Then his view was obstructed as Linda's arms wrapped around him and carried him away, out of the room. Voices surrounded him, frightened and shocked._

_"Don't watch that, sweetie. Don't think about it," Linda whispered in his ear. Her voice was trembling, and vaguely Tony wondered why. _

_His mother had finally gotten to fly._

After the events of that night, things didn't change as much as many of the staff apparently expected them to. Tony kept flashing his contagious smile; his father continued to ignore him and everyone else. It was only after her death that the inhabitants of DiNozzo Manor truly realized just how little Angela had ever contributed to life there.

The next New Year's Eve was to be Tony's last at home, though he did not yet know of his father's plans for his education at a Rhode Island military academy. Linda, his companion to the very last, seemed to be under the impression that Tony would not desire his traditional routine. But the young master requested the pizza as always; the tournament as usual; and he insisted on watching the ball drop. Linda sat with him this time, watching her charge anxiously.

She had no way of knowing that what Tony was hoping for most of all was that it would be his father jumping off the building that year. For although he didn't really miss his mother, he found the need to blame someone for her suicide. Anthony, Sr. was the only one Tony could find it in himself to pretend to hate, and returned indifference was the more accurate description of his behavior. He didn't hate his father, but he was learning to live without the approval he had always secretly desired.

Now, years later, with the past and all that behind him, Tony did not feel sorry, and he had no trouble celebrating New Year's. He felt only the slightest twinge of guilt at the absence of emotion in response to the thought of his mother's demise.

He had not been raised to think much of family, but his friends challenged this part of him every day. And on New Year's, they were always twice as close to proving his theories wrong.


End file.
